The Entropist
by Fourier's Lawyer
Summary: Imperial scientist, Galen Erso manages to get involved in a discussion that will forever alter the course of galactic history.
1. Chapter I: The Vision

_Hey, guys! This is my first fanfiction ever. Any comments and feedback are appreciated. WARNING: Contains spoilers for Rogue One and Catalyst._

 _Did anyone notice that in the message scene from Rogue One, Galen mentions the unstable reactor, but not the exhaust port? This is my take on the reason for that._ Enjoy!

 _I don't own Star Wars._

 **Entropy**

By Fourier's Lawyer

 **Chapter I: The Vision**

Several stories atop the ground floor, walking through wide, spacious hallways, and observing the hushed, unhassled, though however quick work of the occupants, a visitor to the establishment was unlikely to guess that it was, in fact, an imperial research facility.

Unlike the facility's many counterparts, no armored stormtroopers patrolled its entrances. No uniformed officers stood stationed or commanding their ranks. Galen Erso had seen to this.

He had requested that the Coruscant facility, built two or three decades prior, be devoid of military occupation, and to his surprise, the Empire had obliged. He had taken this uncharacteristic lenience to mean that the facility's surveillance was extensive. Under no circumstances, he knew, would the Empire leave any research center for weapons development so open.

Erso himself currently occupied his twentieth story office, gazing nonchalantly into the evening sky out a tiny window in the corner. He considered this a vacation; a break from the strictly patrolled facility on Eadu. It was a base of operations for the project. It was heavily armed and far more secretive, nested at the edge of the galaxy, on an obscure and rarely travelled planet.

How ironic it was, Galen thought, that the least secure of the Empire's properties was located on Coruscant: the greatest, densest ecumenopolis in all the galaxy.

This facility had been his family's home years prior. Galen's apartment was still located a few stories below, but he dared not go there. Jyn and Lyra had once walked those very hallways and occupied those very rooms. Most days, Galen simply slept in his office, falling to sleep with his face buried in his calculations. Such a lifestyle, though not preferable to most, kept Galen at peace. It was precisely the sort of monotony he required to remain focused on his work and little else.

To some degree, he regretted his decision. He'd hoped to escape from the stresses of life on Eadu – to find some semblance of quietude, but he had found only conflict. A page of unfinished calculations lay before him, but he could not find solace in the numbers.

 _Jyn Erso._ The name brought him only pain, for Galen knew that his beloved daughter was either dead, or permanently abandoned. Oh, why had he left her? Would she have lived had he come to her following Lyra's death? No. Surely, the troopers would have fired upon Jyn… even before the eyes of her own father.

Lyra's absence pained him, still, but with less guilt; less conscience. Jyn's loss weighed as heavily on his soul as it had the very day he had left Lah'mu. He could bear the wrenching silence no longer. A tear traced itself down the side of his face, and he did nothing to prevent it. Perhaps, he thought, the room was under real time surveillance. _Good,_ he thought, _Let Krennic see my tears. To him, I am no more than a beaten, broken, coward, and what coward would dare entertain revolt?_

A brisk knock on the door brought Erso out of his thoughts. Hastily drying his face and reaching the door, he pushed a button controller, allowing it to open. His guest, a human female of roughly average height stood before the doorway. She was simply but tastefully dressed. She wore thin, black pants, a white, collared shirt, and a completely enclosed black leather vest with a hem that ended well above her waist. Her metallic belt housed two full pockets.

Galen mustered the courage to acknowledge her smilingly. "Dr. Quintes," he rose from his seat, "A welcome surprise." Quintes ran her fingers through shortly cropped, slightly greying black hair and sighed with a slight undertone of sarcasm.

"A surprise, you say?" she said, "Dr. Erso, I messaged you a few days prior. You very specifically stated that I was to meet you in this precise room, on this precise day, at this precise time, if I'm not mistaken." She tilted her head to the left, smiling lightly.

Galen sighed and shook his head. "Then it's a welcome _reunion._ It's been far too long, my friend." Galen extended his hand and she shook it briskly.

"I come with matters to discuss," Quintes said, "that could not be very well detailed in a message exchange between you and I." She went straight to business, as usual, Galen realized. He was grateful for it. "My concerns have regard to the imperial station's main reactor module."

Galen forced himself not to react. It was so simple, he knew, for him to lie through a written message. If he was forced to discuss the reactor in person, however, his plans could come completely undone.

"I see," Galen responded. He nodded towards Quintes, prompting her to continue. "My team has been informed that the module is unstable, and I am fully aware that you've found no definitive way for us to solve the problem in the near future." She paused. "I understand the reasons for this, Galen, but the reactor seems to be causing other issues. I must ask, what further research can your group conduct?"

Galen forced himself into composition. This was a question for which he was at least relatively prepared. "We are unable to fully channel the energy output of the kyber. Months ago, we released a report detailing the reasons for this." "I've read it," Quintes responded. "I assure you, Rovana, this is a problem I have personally been studying for nearly thirty years," Galen continued, "I hate to say this with such conviction, but there is no further research my group can conduct that will be completed within our timeframe. To what other issues were you referring, exactly?"

Galen cursed himself. He had completely evaded the question. Rovana had wished to be informed of additional options, and he had given her no new information. She would surely notice his blatant equivocation.

"The reactor's thermal output is _tremendous_ ," Rovana explained, "and despite using heat sinks to control it, it seems that any fluid we use for circulation has too little thermal gain capacity to handle the load. We've used virtually every option imaginable, and still, nothing seems to yield desirable results."

Galen could not allow himself to relax. _She knows,_ he thought, _she knows, and she is testing me. Suggest nothing, he prompted himself._ He had two main options: he could provide a possible solution, and risk unintentionally eliminating the major flaw, or he could provide a solution that would exacerbate the issue further, potentially revealing himself. Perhaps, he thought, he could simply act at a loss for ideas. He formulated his response with extreme caution.

"Has this information been released?"

"Yes," Rovana replied, "I've created reports detailing every one of my team's experiments, designs, and trials. They've already been sent to Eadu's data archive." Galen nodded, slowly. "There is one potential solution," Rovana continued, "We could eliminate the factor of thermal resistance altogether. A thermal exhaust port would allow the excess heat to be released into the station's surrounding environment. The lack of air in space would make this release more efficient." She slowed her speech, noticeably, "The exhaust port would, of course have to lead directly from the reactor module to the exterior shell."

Galen acknowledged this in disbelief. A structural flaw would provide the perfect circumstance for the staged destruction of the battle station. _She wants you to agree,_ he noted, _She wants you to reveal your plans._

Quintes noted Galen's speechlessness. "I dislike this solution," she explained, "no less than you do, but it seems to be the only way for the reactor to perform effectively. Intense heat would cause extreme system degradation over time. It's something that we simply can't afford."

"Then I suppose," Galen imparted, "that it is the only remaining course of action. Have you contacted Director Krennic on this matter?" "Not yet," she replied, "I hoped to discuss it with you, first, seeing as it may impact your remaining work."

"Be sure to make contact as soon as possible," Galen advised her.

"Duly noted."

Something about the entire conversation caused Galen some suspicion. Why was Rovana so readily proposing a system that would impede the battle station's security? It could have been to catch him in a lie. There could be troops waiting outside his door, ready to arrest him for treason. Somehow, he suspected something different.

"Rovana," he addressed her. She gave him her attention. "I recall we have not gotten together in quite a while. Are you free for dinner?" She smiled. "Yes, I'm free. What did you have in mind?"


	2. Chapter II: The Conspiration

**Chapter II: The Conspiration**

Rovana sat in silence, immersing herself in the ambiance of an elegantly lit restaurant. A thin glass of Alderaanian wine stood directly in front of her. Thus far, Rovana had not touched it. She was more interested in understanding how the glass was able to stand so securely, given its extreme, unwieldy shape. It was a petty, but distracting thought that nonetheless continued to irk her.

She and Galen had engaged in little more than small talk before arriving here. There was little of interest to discuss, she felt, besides their research, but given their circumstance, it would be suspicious for them to talk openly about their respective endeavors. Instead, they had conversed about their friends and their enjoyments.

The pressing questions remained, still.

Rovana's suspicion – that Galen was, in fact, a traitor to the Empire who had deliberately engineered a flawed reactor module, seemed to hold much validity. Still, her uncertainty prevented her from bringing this up. She, too, was a traitor. She, too, had reason to fear a negative reaction from her friend.

Galen, meanwhile, had produced a datapad. He lightly manipulated the screen with one finger, working quickly. On what, Rovana had no idea, until, underneath the table, he had handed it to her. Cradling the datapad in one hand, she read the text that he, apparently, had written on the screen.

 _You have something to tell me. We share the same secret, I presume?_

The screen seemed to prompt her. Rovana deleted the note with a few simple clicks, formulating her own message to replace it. The datapad reached Galen once again. He read with visible intrigue.

 _Smart move, Erso. I knew you'd catch on. Yes, our suspicions match, and are now confirmed._

Erso faced Quintes. "How did you know?" he mouthed. "Later," she said at equally low volume. Galen typed onto the datapad's screen once again and passed it to her.

 _We'll talk in the field behind the research facility, later, where there's no surveillance._

She acknowledged this with alacrity, nodding in his direction.

...

Galen's hair blew softly around his face. He stood on a paved path in the center of what may have been the only open field on Coruscant. Rovana, who stood a couple of feet to his left, studied the grass with great interest, refusing to make eye contact.

Well out of eyesight, earshot, or the range of any surveillance, Galen broke the silence between them. "How did you know? How _could_ you know?" he prompted. "Well, Galen," she sighed, seeming suddenly woeful, "Like most, I was dragged into this project against my will. I was never _supposed_ to know what we were engineering, but one cannot design anything of this nature without the realizing its tremendous, _immeasurable_ power. The energy generated was... too much for any practical purpose. I knew the Empire's manner of thinking; it had to be militaristic."

She paused, momentarily to look Galen in the eye. "I know you, Galen. I know that you have too much integrity; too much wisdom, to voluntarily succumb to this imperial tyranny. So, when I looked over the plans for the reactor module… I wondered if the ulterior were true."

"Rovana," Galen addressed, "thank you. I should have realized the same of you."

"What were you doing that attracted the Empire's attention?" she prompted him, "Krennic went to the end of the galaxy searching for you. He believed you that important." Galen smiled wryly. "I'm not so crucial as he thinks. I was researching the energy output of kyber crystals. Few others had undertaken this topic of research. The Empire merely had a small pool from which to choose."

"Humble as always," Rovana reprimanded, good-naturedly. "That's a vague response. _Precisely_ what were you studying?" Galen's face fell. "I hoped to design a generation system," he said shakily, "that, using the output of a kyber crystal, would be capable of providing free energy to recovering war-torn systems. After the Clone War, Krennic practically handed the funding for such a project directly to me. He established a research facility, here on Coruscant. We called it, 'Project Celestial Power.' But," he said, gesturing to the adjacent building, "it was not quite what I believed. And Krennic was not quite the benevolent man I believed I could trust."

Before Rovana could respond, Galen realized something. He cursed, suddenly. "We have to get inside," he said hurriedly, "The guards at the gate know when we reentered the facility grounds. If their timing information doesn't match up with the video surveillance inside, we'll look incredibly suspicious."

A paranoid statement, Rovana thought, but she obliged, nonetheless. "I'll show you my plans once we're inside. We'll put on a show for the cameras."


	3. Chapter III: The Message

**Chapter III: The Message**

He stood in an open plain on a breezeless morning. Eadu was so lovely this time of year, Galen thought. The planet's grass and various other flora surrounded him. The facility's gravitational wave detector stood hundreds of meters away. The edifice had once been a thriving center of research. Now, the Empire exploited it to detect massive starships as they exited hyperspace. It was yet _another_ asset that the Empire had made its own.

How ironic it was, Galen thought, that Eadu's surveillance was this extensive, yet it could not catch a single man in his attempt at treason. He supposed it couldn't catch his accomplice, either.

 _Rovana._ Galen sighed, tiredly. Sometimes he wondered if the woman cared to discuss anything besides his research. Recently, it had seemed an obsession of hers. How could he blame her? He had been on the verge of discovery, Galen knew. He had been so close to controlling the kyber's output. He took a moment to recall his last conversation with Rovana.

 _"_ _Galen, I want to know more about that reactor you designed."_

 _"_ _The Death's Star's re-"_

 _"_ _Of course not! I know more about the Death Star than I wish to… I'm referring to the power station you designed before the Empire rose."_

 _"_ _Those designs were never completed…"_

 _"_ _That's precisely my point."_

 _"_ _You can't mean… what do you want with it?"_

 _"_ _Your research is worth completing. I have the money, the resources, and the support. There is still a chance!"_

 _"_ _No, you don't understand. The imperials will never allow it. Intellectual freedom isn't a priority of theirs. They won't allow us to take on our own project."_

 _"_ _I don't work for the Empire, Galen – not officially. I merely sell them my research."_

 _"_ _Why would you-"_

 _"_ _Because they would exploit it whether I sold it or not. With this arrangement, I get paid enough to fund my own projects – projects of which they know nothing. At the same while, I've passed security clearance, so, legally, I can have influence over the major engineering projects."_

 _"_ _You want to complete my research?"_

 _"_ _I want_ us _to complete your research. This technology will_ not _be used only for terror. The galaxy deserves better._ You _deserve better."_

 _"_ _I.. hardly have the words. But I truly cannot, Rovana. I'm under stricter surveillance than any of my colleagues. Krennic has his eye on me. He always has. I wish it were different. My work was never published, but I still have the notes… "_

 _"_ _Then, I will finish what you started, Galen."_

Galen allowed himself only a moment to be satisfied. There were more pressing issues that required his attention, at the moment. His attention was spent by thoughts of the Rebellion. He knew of only one way to communicate his plans to them. Only one method would provide the security he required.

He'd allegedly gone to take a short, relaxing walk through the field – but this was not his true intention. A holorecorder sat in Galen's open palm. It was small and easily concealable. With the assurance that it was connected to no external systems, he pushed a button on the recorder's base and began:

"Saw, if you are watching this, then perhaps there is a chance to save the Alliance. Perhaps there is a chance to explain myself, and though I don't dare hope for too much, a chance for Jyn – _if_ she's alive, if you can _possibly_ find her… to let her know that… my love for her has never faded, and how desperately I've missed her." He poured every ounce of his sincerity – his emotion into the statement. Jyn, his beloved daughter… The beginning of her life had marked the awakening of his own.

"Jyn, my Stardust, I can't imagine what you think of me. When I was taken, I faced some… bitter truths. I was told that soon enough, Krennic would have you as well. As time went by, I knew that you were either dead… or so well hidden that he would never find you."

"I knew if I had refused to work – if I took my own life, it would only be a matter of time before Krennic realized he no longer needed me. So, I did the one thing nobody expected: I lied. I _learned_ to lie; played the part of a beaten man resigned to the sanctuary of his work. I made myself _indispensable,_ and all the while, I laid the groundwork of my revenge."

"We call it the _Death Star._ There is no better name, and the day is coming soon… when it will be unleashed. I've placed a weakness deep within the system: a flaw so small and powerful they will never find it. But, Jyn. Jyn, if you're listening, my beloved, so much of my life has been wasted." Pain followed the statement. So much of his life had been _wasted._ He, a man determined to bring peace to a war-torn galaxy, had been forced into the Empire's militarism. He had the potential to save lives, yet he would indirectly kill _billions_ of innocents. The thought, alone, was as painful as the loss of Jyn and Lyra. That thought alone, logically, should have been _more_ painful.

"I try to think of you… only in the moments when I'm strong, because the pain of not having you with me… your mother… our family… The pain of that loss is so overwhelming, I risk failing even now. It's just so hard not to think of you; think of where you are. My Stardust… " Galen's speech trailed. Avoiding his instinct of silence, he swallowed the emotion and continued.

"So, the reactor module – that's the key. _That's_ the place I've laid my trap. It's well hidden and unstable. One blast to any part of it will destroy the entire station. You'll need the plans – the structural plans for the Death Star, to find the reactor. I _know_ there's a complete engineering archive in the data vault at the Citadel Tower on Scarif. _Any_ pressurized explosion to the reactor module will set off a chain reaction that will destroy the entire system."

Jyn, the Alliance _must_ see this message. It is _imperative._ Until the Death Star is destroyed, the galaxy will be relegated to an eternity of fear for the Empire's reign. And perhaps… if it is destroyed; if the rebellion wins… though, again, I don't dare hope for too much, there may still be a chance… for us to reunite."


End file.
